In defense of... Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.

With yet another would-be remake/reboot/sequel of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre arriving in theaters tonight night at 10pm (this time merely titled Texas Chainsaw 3D), I thought now would be as good a time as any to offer my thoughts on my favorite entry in the very long running series.  No, I'm not talking about the admittedly groundbreaking Tobe Hopper original, nor the surprisingly good 2003 remake, nor even one of the wacky 'official' sequels.  No, truth be told, my favorite variation on the adventures of Leatherface and his cannibalistic family remains the last one.  I'm speaking of course of Jonathan Liebesman's 2006 prequel to Marcus Nispel's 2003 remake (complicated, I know), entitled merely Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.  The film was a moderate box office success ($19 million opening weekend, $51 million worldwide off a $16 million budget) but was roundly panned by most critics and even a large number of would-be hardcore horror fans.  To this day, I'm not sure why.  Yes, it can be argued that we don't need an origin story for Leatherface and his murderous clan. We don't need to see how he was born, how he got the chainsaw, or how a certain villain from the prior entry happened to have lost his legs.  But perhaps too well hidden in the minutiae of its origin stories and mythology building is nothing less than a top-flight horror film.

Irony alert: Fans decry alleged unfaithfulness of Michael Bay's Ninja Turtles, a property immortalized by an unfaithful and (horrors!) kid-friendly cartoon.

This isn't exactly 'new news', but the irony took awhile to sink in, and it somewhat ties in with that "Titanic was real?!" piece I wrote last week.  As pretty much all of you know, the Michael Bay-run Platinum Dunes is producing Paramount's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot due next year. Jonathan Liebesman is directing, but the real source of umbrage is a comment Michael Bay made a few weeks ago concerning the possibly updated origins of everyone's favorite teenage mutant ninja turtles.  To quote, "These turtles are from an alien race, and they are going to be tough, edgy, funny and completely lovable."  With that comment, the entire Internet exploded with petulant fanboy rage, the sort of thing that makes film lovers in general look bad, with would-be fans aghast that Mr. Bay might alter the characters and make them 'alien' instead of 'mutant'.  I won't go into the specific reactions from specific parties, but eventually director Liesebesman told everybody to chill out and correctly explained that, according to the comics, the mutagen that turned four turtles into a 'ninja fighting team' was in fact alien in origin. Not only is this a prime example of fans going absolutely insane due to filmmakers (specifically ones as loathed by the geek set as Michael Bay, arguably because he makes big-budget spectacles that cater to jocks instead of nerds) have the gall to deviate from alleged sacred source material, but it represents a kind of cultural amnesia in terms of why those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are still somewhat popular 25 years after their creation.  I'm talking about that horrifying unfaithful and kid-friendly cartoon that ran for ten seasons starting in 1987.  You probably can sing the theme by heart.

Iron Man writers brought in by Paramount and Platinum Dunes to write Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot, coming in 2012.

Amusingly, Nikki Finke reported this news by exclaiming "(Paramount) is looking at (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) as its next huge franchise, like Transformers, a source told me." That's shocking news, as I thought Nickelodeon paid $60 million for the property last October so they could make a low-budget mumblecore. "Cow... a, um... well, bunga?" Anyway, snark aside, writers Matt Holloway and Art Marcum have been brought on board by Platinum Dunes to revamp the 26-year old comic book franchise. Amusingly enough, these are two of the four writers who were NOT brought along to write Jon Favreau's upcoming Cowboys Vs. Aliens. These two instead followed up their Iron Man script with Punisher: War Zone, which is not a promising sign (did no one notice that, had Frank Castle just stayed in bed, every single bad guy would have arrested on capital charges within 48 hours anyway?). On the other hand, they are currently developing a Justin Lin-directed reboot of Highlander for Summit Entertainment, which is the rare 80s geek property that could actually use a makeover (five movies, a cartoon series, a six-year television series, an ongoing comic book or two, and the TV series was the only thing close to being good).